I see that both the Sunday morning talking heads and the McCain campaign are trying to spin some last minute gold out of damp, moldy straw. It all centers around a single, off the cuff remark from Barack Obama on Friday.
Seizing on a comment Obama made Friday that his faith in America was “vindicated” by his win in the Iowa caucuses, McCain mocked the Democratic presidential nominee for needing a test of the nation’s goodness. “We learn more and more about Senator Obama. He said the other day that his primary victory ‘vindicated’ his faith in America,” he said, as the crowd booed. “My country has never had anything to prove to me, my friends. I have always had faith in it, and I have been humbled and honored to serve it.“
It’s a nice try, I suppose, but I find it rather surprising that neither the chattering class nor McCain’s campaign staff bothered to break out a dictionary. One of the primary definitions of the word “vindicate” reads as follows:
verb: show to be right by providing justification or proof (“Vindicate a claim”)
For some reason these folks seem to be attempting to play this remark off as evidence that Obama “didn’t have any belief in America” until Iowa “proved it to him.” Unfortunately, that’s not what this means. When something is vindicated, it indicates that the previously held belief had been proven true. So, in fact, Obama’s statement could just as easily be read to mean that he had believed in America all along and his victory in Iowa simply confirmed what he had known all along.
Sometimes swinging for the fences in the last inning will result in a surprise win. As Babe Ruth learned, though, all too often it leads to striking out. Mark this one down as a swing and a miss.